


someday i'm gonna be standing on your street

by la_victorienne



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-01
Updated: 2008-08-01
Packaged: 2018-10-16 00:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10560516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: when he finally dies, there is something he remembers.





	

And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.

\- Terry Pratchett,  
Feet of Clay  


  
_And so it comes to this, so it comes to the end._

_It feels like he’s stretched one life over eons, given of himself unto the world until this glass castle is the only thing he knows now. It seems a careless blessing, this death, its imminence a comfort rather than a tragedy, though he can hear the weeping. Do not, he thinks, though even that is weak. I am happy to be home, she hears, and one breath after the other brings him closer to the edge, closer than he’s ever been before. There were countless deaths, he knows, without a doubt. Not just his own. The memories are fragmented, they are shattered, they flash before his heart in light and shadow in blurs of color, but he does remember them. The way her hair felt, so sweet and soft against his chin; the taste of his skin, salt and sweat and a gentle sleep; the smell of the bodies and the breath of the living. And it is all right now, to let those thoughts pass on. At the end of it all, letting go is all right._

There’s a darkening, and a fading, and a single, brilliant memory flooding his bruised and battered senses, its light more stunning than any he can remember. A young man, a boy beyond his years, and the courage, the faith, to always continue, no matter what it cost him. And it’s this memory that brings him home. After the ages, it’s this one, precious memory that brings him to the edge, to the final rolling breath.

“You followed me,” Ianto says quietly, his hands folded behind him, his eyes ahead. “I told you not to, you know.” He turns when Jack approaches his side and smiles. “But I know how you are about rules.” Jack grins in return and edges close enough so their elbows touch.

“Never liked them unless I was setting them myself. You do know me well.”

“Better than most,” Ianto agrees, and sighs contentedly.

“Better than anyone,” Jack murmurs, and Ianto’s eyes turn lazily to meet Jack’s gaze. He doesn’t argue; however untrue this sentiment is for Jack’s lifetime, it is true of Ianto’s, and that is enough. It is all he needs to keep fighting. Jack hums a happy breath and turns his eyes out to the sea, letting the wind ruffle his hair and the salt infiltrate his lungs. “You know the breath I’m going to take before my brain thinks to take it, Ianto, and I’m not sure you know what that means.” Ianto takes a breath. “No, not now. Listen. This will be important someday, and I need you to hear it.

“I’ve never had anyone pay attention to me as closely as you do, Ianto. I’ve followed the Doctor, I’ve followed others – but never has anyone followed me. But you, Jones, Ianto Jones, you followed me wherever I went until I let you. And you have no idea what that meant to a lowly, no-good conman like myself.

“I can’t return the favor. I can’t follow you into the dark or protect you from what’s coming. But I can give you now. I can give you today.” Ianto is silent, relaxed, his entire body still and listening. “I want to give you today.” Jack passes a hand over Ianto’s hair, touches his face with the backs of his fingers. Ianto catches the hand that touches him, presses his lips to the palm.

“I know,” he whispers, and in those words Jack hears all the things Ianto cannot say, his entire soul trapped by Torchwood’s influence. Their bodies move towards each other as if bound by a single thought, embracing tightly on the rocky outcrop. Skin says everything that remains unsaid.

_When night is falling over his breathless body, when she weeps into his skin with unusual abandon for one of her station, when the world is waking up from its endless sleep, he knows from the blank depths that for some inexplicable reason he is happy. He has followed the summer from one place to another, and in this endless, balmy wind, he can feel at peace._


End file.
